Her Favorite Flavor

Elise Lorrayne is twenty-two, brilliant in the kitchen, and heartbreakingly unready for the woman who will unravel her. She's just graduated top of her class from culinary school, full of ambition and nerves, and moves to Denver with a quiet dream: to cook for the city's elite, to build something of her own, to finally breathe without her mother's voice in her ear. The kind of mother who calls independence defiance, and love something you earn by staying small. Elise wants more. She wants space, control, maybe even tenderness. What she doesn't expect is Vera Devereaux. Vera is thirty-eight, sharp as knives, and impossible to look away from. A self-made real estate mogul with a gaze that lingers too long and a presence that fills the room before she speaks. Elise is supposed to be just another chef auditioning for a job. But one glance turns into something confidential, one bite becomes something intimate, and suddenly, Elise is pulled into a dynamic she doesn't fully understand. The chemistry between them is undeniable. But Vera isn't the only one watching. There's also Celeste Vaughn, Vera's rival, equally powerful, equally hungry. And she sees something in Elise too. In a city built on quiet obsession and cold ambition, Elise is about to learn that desire doesn't always ask permission. Sometimes it arrives unannounced. Sometimes it bites.